Complaint: A requester alleged that the 2,400 days in time extensions the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) claimed to process multiple overlapping requests for information about the federal public service pension plan were unreasonable.

Investigation: The OIC learned that not all of the records were electronic and that they were stored in multiple locations. In addition, TBS had to consult six institutions about the records, and only a few in-house staff had the expertise to identify and review the records. TBS allocated as many resources within its pensions unit as it could to these requests without unduly disrupting operations, and heavily involved executives in reviewing records. The access office developed a plan to respond to the requests, dedicating a significant amount of resources to processing the records.

Outcome: In the end, the Commissioner was satisfied that TBS had provided sufficient information to justify the length of the extensions, taken all necessary steps to ensure it would be able to respond to the requests by the extended deadline and demonstrated its commitment to processing them. TBS issued interim responses as information became ready for release.

Information Commissioner’s position:

• The Access to Information Act sets out the response time for requests of 30 days, but acknowledges that processing some requests within that timeframe may be impossible.
• Institutions may extend the deadline for their response for a reasonable time in these situations but must provide detailed information about their plans to issue the final response to the request by the extended deadline.